<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><head><meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 15 (filtered medium)"><style><!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Verdana;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
p.quotation, li.quotation, div.quotation
{mso-style-name:quotation;
mso-style-link:"quotation Char";
margin-top:0in;
margin-right:0in;
margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;
font-weight:bold;
font-style:italic;}
span.quotationChar
{mso-style-name:"quotation Char";
mso-style-link:quotation;
font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;
font-weight:bold;
font-style:italic;}
span.EmailStyle22
{mso-style-type:personal-reply;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
color:windowtext;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
--></style><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>Merle:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=quotation>Your generation may not be able to tackle the article with an open mind, but I suggest that we need to pay close attention.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I take it you mean \u201cour\u201d generation, right? <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I assume that you mean by racist that these \u201ccodes of conduct\u201d unfairly advantage some racial/ethnic group at the expense of others. I assume that that is what you mean by racist. I assume you don\u2019t mean that there will be no \u201ccodes of conduct\u201d in a post-racist world. But any code of conduct is a constraint, and thus disadvantages somebody for whom that constraint is, well, a constraint. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>When I was young, I used to write books. Now I am old, I just write book titles. I am thinking of a book entitled, <b><i>Who is this old White guy, and why should I pay attention to him? </i></b> It\u2019s a book about Strunk and White\u2019s <i>Elements of Style</i>. Now there\u2019s a code of conduct if ever I saw one! What does Strunk and White look like in a post racial world? You cannot imagine a world without style guides anymore than you can imagine a highway without rules of the road, right? So what does Strunk and Brown look like? Trust me. Those aren\u2019t rhetorical questions. I really want to know. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>But yes, I will read the article.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Nick <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Nicholas Thompson<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Clark University<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="mailto:ThompNickSon2@gmail.com"><span style='color:#0563C1'>ThompNickSon2@gmail.com</span></a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/"><span style='color:#0563C1'>https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/</span></a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b>From:</b> Friam <friam-bounces@redfish.com> <b>On Behalf Of </b>Merle Lefkoff<br><b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, July 28, 2020 1:01 PM<br><b>To:</b> The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com><br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [FRIAM] gelotophilia<o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana",sans-serif'>Sorry, Steve, to be a bit off topic here, but your reference to "certain codes of personal conduct" emerging from institutions of "higher education" are now considered racist. And I suggest that the list take a look at this amazing piece in a recent NYTimes titled "Whiteness Lessons". Your generation may not be able to tackle the article with an open mind, but I suggest that we need to pay close attention.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana",sans-serif'><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/magazine/white-fragility-robin-diangelo.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/magazine/white-fragility-robin-diangelo.html</a><o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal>On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 9:58 AM Steve Smith <<a href="mailto:sasmyth@swcp.com" target="_blank">sasmyth@swcp.com</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p></div><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><div><p>As I read the interchange about GPT-3 and the Chinese room, I was drawn off into side-musings which were finally polyped off to a pure tangent (in my head) when DougC and NickT exchanged:<o:p></o:p></p><blockquote style='margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt'><p>NLT> Dog do joy; why not computers? <o:p></o:p></p></blockquote><blockquote style='margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt'><p>DC> dog is highly interconnected - hormones, nerves, senses, and environment. neurons are not binary . every synapse is an infinite state variable.<o:p></o:p></p></blockquote><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>While Joy and humor are not identical, there is some positive correlation. Poking around, I was only mildly surprised to find that there was a body of literature and in fact international organizations and conferences on humor (not mimes or clowns or stand up comedians, but real scholars studying the former as well as regular people). I was looking for the physiological complexes implied by humor or joy. I haven't (yet) found as much on the topic as I would like, maybe because I got sidelined reading about 2 neologisms (ca 2007) and a related ancient (Greek) term: <i>Gelotophobia</i>, <i>Gelotophilia</i>, and <i>Katagelasticism</i>. My limited Italian and Spanish had me reading it as "Gelato" or "Helado" which translates roughly into our own "Ice Cream", though the ingredients differ toward less rich technically.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>Their meanings, however are roughly: Fear of being laughed at; Love of being laughed at; and the Pleasure of laughing at others. These are apparently more than the usual discomfort or warm feelings we might get from being laughed at, or from laughing at others, but a more deep and acute sense of it.<o:p></o:p></p><blockquote style='margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt'><p><a href="https://www.wired.com/2011/07/international-humor-conference/" target="_blank">https://www.wired.com/2011/07/international-humor-conference/</a><o:p></o:p></p></blockquote><blockquote style='margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt'><p><a href="https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/14037/1/Ruch_Proyer_PhoPhiKat_V.pdf" target="_blank">https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/14037/1/Ruch_Proyer_PhoPhiKat_V.pdf</a><o:p></o:p></p></blockquote><p>Part of why I bring it up on this list is because as I study myself and others as we exchange our ideas, observations, and occasional (un)pleasantries, I am fascinated by the intersection between (convolution amongsT?) personal styles and perhaps more formal "training" each of us might have learned from our parents, among our peers, by our teachers, our workplaces, possibly professional organizations, etc. <o:p></o:p></p><p>It appears to me that institutions of higher education enforce/impose a certain code of personal conduct first on their participants (undergrads, grads, postdocs, staff, faculty) which is a microcosm of the larger world. White Collar and Blue Collar contexts are also similarly dissimilar, and within those, a cube-farm of programmer-geeks and a bullpen of writers, and a trading floor of traders (all white collar, taking their showers at the beginning of the day) have a wide spectrum while blue collar workers (taking their showers at the end of the day) do as well. Construction crews, oilfield roughnecks, cowboys, farmhands, etc. each have their own myriad ways of interacting... sometimes *requiring* a level of mocking to feel connected, etc. There may also be a strong generational component... as we cross roughly 3 generations. Greatest/Boomers/X/Millenials/Zoomers/??? and all the cusps between.<o:p></o:p></p><p>But what I was most interested in is related to the original discussion which is what is the extended physiological response to humor, joy, mockery that a human (or animal?) may have which a synthetic being would need to be designed to include. Perhaps a properly broadly conceived General Artificial Intelligence would ultimately include all of this as well, and as deep learning evolves, it seems that there is no reason that a GI couldn't simulate the physiological feedback loops that drive and regulate some aspects of humore?<o:p></o:p></p><p>- Steve<o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal>- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .<br>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv<br>Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 <a href="http://bit.ly/virtualfriam" target="_blank">bit.ly/virtualfriam</a><br>un/subscribe <a href="http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com" target="_blank">http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</a><br>archives: <a href="http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/" target="_blank">http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/</a><br>FRIAM-COMIC <a href="http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/</a> <o:p></o:p></p></blockquote></div><p class=MsoNormal><br clear=all><o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal>-- <o:p></o:p></p><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.<br>Center for Emergent Diplomacy<br><a href="http://emergentdiplomacy.org" target="_blank">emergentdiplomacy.org</a><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><br>mobile: (303) 859-5609<br>skype: merle.lelfkoff2<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff<o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>